


What Happened to Us

by renaissancejinx



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Birdflash - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissancejinx/pseuds/renaissancejinx
Summary: Dick didn't know what brought on nights like this one, he just knew he needed them.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Wally West
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	What Happened to Us

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I'm Stevie! This is my first young justice fanfic so please be nice haha! Figured I start with a little bit of Dick Grayson, Wally West friendship angst! Initially I intended for this to be gayer but it just never really got there, next time though. Hope you enjoy!

He had laid in bed for two hours, sleepless, before he decided to look at it. It was unclear to him what brought on these nights, maybe it was because it was a relatively quiet night, or maybe it was because he had too much spicy food before bed, or maybe simply because he needed them. Grief is funny in that way, it is often ubiquitous and shapeless, and will retreat and hide in the smallest parts of life, before setting on you again without warning or explanation. It set on him that night.   
It was hidden next to the nightstand on his side of the bed, wedged between the covers, the small box only saw light whenever the sheets were changed. He felt bad about hiding it there, Barbara would often spend the night and he never told her about it. Despite asking on several occasions, Dick always swore he was fine. Barbara was the most important person in his life and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about it. It felt like betrayal.   
He also felt like it was disrespectful to… him.   
He wished he had the strength to keep it out somewhere. He often thought of buying a nice frame for it, something Wally would’ve liked. However, then he would instantly dismiss the idea, blaming it on the fact that Walmart didn’t sell picture frames with nachos on them, and not on the fact that most days he couldn’t stand to look at the picture. That most days all it did is remind him of all the things left unsaid, unresolved, remind him of all the little ways that Wally was missing from his life. That most days he couldn’t bear it all. It was only under the cover of darkness that he could handle it, when he was alone, and had taken off the suit, and he was no longer Nightwing protector of the innocent, but merely Dick Grayson, a young man whose only superpower was losing the people most important to him.  
Not all pictures of Wally bothered him this much. Just this one did, because it was so Wally. That’s why he hid it, because the picture was more alive than Wally was, and he couldn’t stand that. Ever since his presumed death, Dick tried to forget things about the boy, simply because it was the easiest way to survive without him. Tabula Rasa, a blank slate. If he didn’t talk about Wally, or think about Wally, maybe he could convince himself there was no Wally, maybe he could convince himself he was okay, and maybe he could convince himself that a small part of him didn’t blame himself.   
He started with the easiest things to forget, the superficial things, like how he dressed, the things he wished Wally didn’t do, like the dutch ovens he would do on their movie nights he thought were so funny, and progressively moved on to the harder things. First, his smile. That was the first thing he noticed about Wally, he was always smiling. Real smiles too, Wally never had a fake smile. His laugh was next, Wally had a contagious laugh. Dick joked with Artemis on occasion that whenever the clouds parted, it meant Wally was laughing somewhere. That laugh was his favorite song on the soundtrack of his youth. Finally, he tried his voice, probably the most unsuccessful on the journey to forget. Dick blamed this failure however on his inability to commit to the mission. On his phone he kept a voicemail from Wally, it wasn’t long, just Wally telling Dick about his day. It was from when they first formed the Team. He missed the simplicity of back then, before everything was about Gods and Monsters, when it was just six young heroes trying to prove they were worth a chance.  
At the end of the day though, the voice mail didn’t matter, the clouds didn’t matter, nothing else mattered, besides that picture. Every time he looked at that picture, it undid everything all over again. It was both the beginning, and the end, a time loop he found himself running in. Over, and over again.  
Dick sat up in bed. He didn’t move for a while, his eyes looked at the box through his peripherals, while he tried to convince himself he wasn’t looking at it, wasn’t thinking about it. It always went this way. He’d not be able to sleep, he’d sit up in bed, he’d wait a few minutes to see if the need would go away, and then he would cave and pick up the box. Tonight was no different.  
Finally, he reached towards the night stand, slipped his hand next to it, and snaked the box out. He then placed it in his lap, and stared at it. The box wasn’t anything special, just a random black shoe box he had lying around. It was the first thing he could find to place it in when he decided he couldn’t look at it anymore.   
He rubbed his finger against the lid of the box, he was nervous. The picture always made him nervous for some reason, as if it was a drug, and he was merely an addict always wondering if this hit would be his last. In the back of his mind, he knew he didn’t have to worry about his last hit ever coming though. He knew he’d spend the rest of his life missing Wally. Nothing was going to change that.  
He took a breath, and then opened the box. Inside was a 4x6 picture flipped upside down, he always did that when he was done with it, flipped it upside down. It acted as one last chance for him to turn back, even though he knew at that point nothing would make him turn back.   
Slowly, he placed his fingers on the corner of the polaroid, his breath was shaky. He swallowed hard, then turned it over. In front of him was a picture of just the two of them. Pictures of Wally were rare enough, considering the boy never slowed down, but pictures of just Dick and Wally? Nearly impossible. Despite their years of friendship, it was the only one of its kind. Artemis had taken it for them one day, at Dick’s request. It was in the old souvenir room at Mount Justice, and while Dick had asked Artemis to take a picture of souvenirs for Batman’s records, she had managed to snap a photo of the two boys joking around and laughing, holding the eye of Mister Twister.   
Wally looked exactly how he remembered him, like Wally. Smiling, laughing, shit shooting Wally, that parted the clouds, and left voicemails just to tell Dick about his day. He looked like the Wally that never disappeared, that never gave up the life, the Wally that Dick Grayson never lost. He wished he could be a kid again, that he could ignore the wishes of Batman with the team just one more time, with Wally, just one more time.  
Dick felt a tear well up in the corner of his eye, and broke his gaze with the picture. He wasn’t sure if the picture made him feel better, or if it just made him feel justified, reminded him that there was a reason he missed Wally so much, that there were ten million reasons he missed Wally so much. For him, that picture was proof, proof of the years, of the smile, of the laugh, of the voice, proof of everything he felt inside of him since his death. That picture was proof of his death, proof of a time that was, that used to be, that never will be again. Maybe that’s all grief is, just waking up every day and proving to yourself that someone you loved is gone, that a world with you but not them is possible, no matter how hard it is to believe.  
Wally gave him that picture. He said that Artemis found it on her hard drive one day and decided it was too cute to not print out. Dick still remembered what Wally said when he showed it to him. Wally took the photo out of his wallet, and held it in front of the two of them. After explaining how Artemis found the photo, he looked at it for a second and then laughed.   
“Look at how young we were! God Dick, what happened to us?” and then he laughed that sky parting Wally laugh that Dick chased in his dreams.   
Slowly he turned back towards the picture and looked at it again. These sessions were never long, they never needed to be. All it took was one look and every memory was back right exactly where it was supposed to be. He looked at the picture and smiled a sad smile at the two unknowing young boys in it.   
“God Wally, what happened to us?”   
Dick sighed, and then flipped the picture over. He closed the black shoe box, and then snaked it back under the bed, next to the night stand. He sat up in bed for a second, before he got back under the covers, and waited for sleep. It always came quick. Then the next day he started his mission again, pretending to forget what happened to the two boys all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who recently lost someone this year, writing this was kinda therapeutic. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it! I'm pretty new to the DC fandom and would love some other DC fan friends so if you want you could follow me on twitter @renaissancejinx! Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
